OCH News: June 2007

Randy Gragg's Against Nostalgia online

If you missed Randy Gragg's Winter 2007 Commonplace Lecture about land-use planning and architecture at Temple Beth Israel in February 2007, you can download a PDF of the chapbook or listen to an audio file at the Commonplace Lectures web page. In his last public lecture as the Oregonian's architecture critic, Gragg discusses the impact of visionaries John Yeon and Lawrence Halprin and urges citizens to play a larger, more active role in shaping the state's built and natural environments.

OCH's Commonplace Lectures connect ideas and communities three times a year at different locations around the state. Susan Hardwick's Spring 2007 lecture, Far from Home: Slavic Refugees and the Changing Face of Oregon, will be available as a chapbook later this month.


Read about "Secrets" and Write about "Domesticity"

The Spring 2007 issue of Oregon Humanities on the theme of "Secrets" is now available, with essays by Brian Doyle, Tracy Daugherty, Debra Gwartney, and many others. Please let us know if you haven't yet received your copy or if you'd like to join the mailing list. You can also read many of the essays and articles online.

We're also accepting submissions for the Fall 2007 issue on the theme of "Domesticity." Writers and scholars can read the OH writers'guidelines, download the RFP, and submit a query or completed draft of feature essays or articles by June 8, 2007.

Readers may contribute Posts or photos until August 13, 2007. Posts submissions (500 words maximum) may discuss domesticity as it figures in our shared culture; the representations and narratives of home and family in history, literature, and contemporary culture; domesticity as a commercial and cultural product; or the role of domesticity in our social, economic, and public spheres. Photos should also illustrate the theme of domesticity and should be accompanied by an entry form. Send your submissions to Posts, Oregon Council for the Humanities, 812 SW Washington St. Suite 225, Portland, OR 97205, or by e-mail.


Summer at OCH

The humanities don't disappear just because the sun is out. In fact, our education programs are in full swing between now and September.

1. OCH is offering the following two Teacher Institutes in 2007:

Twenty-first Century Citizen: The Transformation of American Public Life, at Reed College in Portland, June 29-July 1. Enrollment for this institute is closed.

Crossroads of Knowledge: Science and the Human

Experience at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande, August 6-10. OCH is still accepting applications for this institute.

2. OCH has selected twelve Oregon high school sophomores to receive 2007 Young Scholar Grants:

These scholars will spend the summer researching humanities projects of their own design. Watch for information about their public presentations in August.

3. OCH Honors Symposium: Generations, will convene 100 high school students for two days of rigorous reading and discussion at Liberty High School in Hillsboro, August 2-3.

You can contact Jennifer Allen for more information about these programs.


Message from the Executive Director

The mission of the Oregon Council for the Humanities is to improve the quality of life of Oregonians by providing programs-like the ones described in this newsletter-that enrich minds and broaden perspectives, foster positive human relationships, encourage civility and good citizenship, and bring together the diverse peoples who make up our statewide culture.

Most OCH programs and publications are offered free of charge. We believe that knowledge and ideas are fundamental to the health of our communities and that, as such, the humanities are for everyone!

Please feel free to contact me or any other OCH staff member if you have any questions or suggestions about this newsletter or about OCH activities in general. And please consider making a contribution to help us keep humanities programming available to all Oregonians.

Sincerely,

Cara Ungar-Gutierrez

© 2007 Oregon Council for the Humanities